The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-05-13

y
amidst the transports of their widest
flights, and returned ever and ever to the
precincts of that world which had once
been the only world to them. But to the
world of waters they could never return.
Thus divided yet near parted yet united
by love, they lowered over the barrier
that lay between them. They were
there to welcome their emancipated
brothers who soon followed them And
often the breezy air at the forest pond re-
sounded on the bright summer afternoons
with the clashing Of dragon flies wings as
they darted TO and fro over the crystal
water in the rapture Of the new life. On
these occasions some fresh arrival of kin
dred frem below added a keener sense to
their already joyous existence. Sweet as
suredly it was to each new conner, when
the mystery of his fate was thus solved, to
find in the new region, not strange and
friendless abode, but home rich with the
welcomes of those who had gone before
add a word Of Interpretation. It is
hardly necessary. Since, like the larvae
of the dragon flies, we are living and
creeping about on the bottom of an ocean
some five and twenty miles deep; (the at
mosphere that envelopes this globe, and
which, in comparison with the inter-p plane
tary ether outside Of it is as dense as water
compared with air. why may it not be,
such is the thought that this beautiful
parable suggests, that at death, when
these visible tenements fall away, we pass
into a higher sphere, with which our pres
emf organs are not fine enough to commu-
nicate, and where the wondrous and rudi-
mental powers folded up within us, of
which we are but dimly conscious now, re-
leased from the combining flesh, expand
nation to conceive?
But the hope that springs eternal in the
breast, OF higher and more enduring life
than this of the body turns from all these
hints of nature to the one great natural
fact, even to Him in whom our nature was
wonderfully developed. AS an instance
and example of spirit that bears no mark
of mortality in word, as the representa-
tive man of our race, in whom the loftiest
possibilities of human nature are realized
| Christ is the hope fulfilled and the pledge
of an imperishable life in us all. Once let
His idea be planted in the heart, and it W i'll
bring forth immortal fruit, faith, venera-
ton, love- and you will become conscious
of a life that is fed by springs over which
death has no power You will cease to be
anxious about future life, Tor you will be
entering deeper and deeper, here and now
into an immortal condition Of existence
passing from under the shadow of death,
that rests over all the world, into the un-
clouded light of Being which never sets.
Every day this eorruptibe viii be putting
on interruption, this mortal immortality.
Such was the experience of the first disci-
pie of Jesus, by whom he was trusted i'll,
revered and loved. as he has never been
since. To use the language Of one Of them:
ssHe was formed within them the Hope of
everlasting glory"
And then, too, when we are in full SYM
patty with Him, then will his utteranees
which, apart from Him, have no more au-
thority nor interest than any of the say
ings of wise men of old, take on the sig
nificanee of revelations. We shall feel
their truth and power rs we never felt
them before. For we shall see ever more
clearly how they are surcharged with the
/ Iao vi xpff I, 20 IF tha l-ar
They were no hearsays, uttered by rote.
They were no mere commonplace tradi-
tons. They gushed up like springs OF
water from an unfa lhomed deep of per-
[ soual conviction. He spoke not like the
Scribes. At the slightest suggestion, upon
sudden and ordinary weekly occasions, His
faith overfiowed in speech. His affirma-
lions effervesce with His very life. At the
briefest word of another there lightened
from Him thoughts that breathe the pro-
foundest wisdom, words that burn with a
fire that illumines the world.
81 am the Resurrection and tie Life, ;"
said He, ''Who so believes in me, though
he were dead, yet will he live, and he who
| lives believing in me will never die" What
| words are these to come from mortal lips,
But pause and consider what had been the
experience of the speaker, how all things
| had worked together to create in Him so
profound consciousness that He said,
J ''Of myself am nothing. 1t is not |, it
| is the Father who speaks and works
| through me, not that his own will was
annihilated; but it had become identified
with the divine will. Whose believed in
Him. as He SAID, believed not in Him but in
| Him who sent him. 1t was not to himself
that he arrogated the power by which the
dead live again and the living never die.
To faith in God death is no longer death,
but life.
O when shall our hearts be so open and
| so pure that we shall inhale as our very
| life breath, the AIR of immortality which
these words breathe, and with all the
strength of personal conviction, echo the
triumphant cry of the Apostle: so Death!
where is thy sting Gravel where is thy
victory - Thanks be to God who has
given us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ.
! sIIe Ieadsus to the heig hit